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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23428432">the unimaginable</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/VesperNexus/pseuds/VesperNexus'>VesperNexus</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>that boy is mine [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hamilton - Miranda</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kidnapping, M/M, Sadness, Secret Relationship</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 10:28:34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,849</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23428432</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/VesperNexus/pseuds/VesperNexus</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The muscles in his face burn spritely with the effort, but if an inkling of what brews within him blossoms in his eyes, Knox himself will chain Washington to the desk.</p><p>Instead he quiets, swallows his words, swallows the mercurial beat of his own heart. </p><p>Or, Hamilton has been taken, and Washington will move heaven and earth to get his boy back.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Alexander Hamilton &amp; John Laurens, Alexander Hamilton/George Washington</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>that boy is mine [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1677175</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>85</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>the unimaginable</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>have some plot<br/>more ham in the next instalment i promise<br/>i hurt them because i love them &lt;3 also because i was listening to lana del rey's dark paradise</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The words don’t quite register.</p><p>There’s a rapid influx of them, desperate little things stunted with grief and remorse as they tumble awkwardly from his bruised mouth. They are thick and unpleasant things, pungent and poignant in the way they suck up the silence, sludge dripping steadily onto the wooden floors. Knox’s lips open and close and his eyes are shadowed with devastation, hands pressed hard into his trousers to smother the tremble. The air is dense, unbearably dense, and for a long moment Washington struggles to breathe, forgets to inhale and exhale and his throat has long constricted, and his lungs are rebelling and his chest – <em>Providence </em>– his chest is <em>tight. </em></p><p>Taken. <em>Taken, taken, taken.</em></p><p>
  <em>His boy.</em>
</p><p>“George?”</p><p>His snaps back to attendance, pinches his leg hard enough to bruise. The air rushes into him violently, his sudden intake of breath loud and harsh. Knox grimaces.</p><p>“My friend, I’m so sincerely sorry, I understand Colonel Hamilton was a man of singular character, your chief of staff, your aid-”</p><p>The words puncture his composure, a well-placed punch to the belly.</p><p>His aid. Washington feels something inside him give, his shoulders lolling hard against the wooden chair. Hamilton is the morning sun trudging stubbornly through the storm clouds, he is the long gentle rain after a hard drought, he is the reason Washington will bring the British to heel, he is his boy, <em>his Alexander. </em>Washington cannot think of Hamilton as merely his <em>aid</em>, his <em>chief of staff </em>– a title hollowed by the duties the boy took rebelliously upon his shoulders long before Washington kissed the breath from his lungs and breathed ardent affection into his chest.</p><p>Hamilton is <em>not </em>his aid, Hamilton is <em>everything. </em></p><p>Washington doesn’t quite know what to do in a world without his boy.</p><p>“They came upon us so suddenly, they shot my horse from beneath me, but the boy pushed me on his own and he-”</p><p>Knox is still speaking, his voice rising to a crescendo of misplaced anger and indignation. “I’m sorry my friend, would it so that we could spare the men-”</p><p>He lets Knox rattle on, lets him alleviate the guilt from his chest with meaningless platitudes. Washington nods at the right moments, keeps his expression carefully blank. The muscles in his face burn spritely with the effort, but if an inkling of what brews within him blossoms in his eyes, Knox himself will chain Washington to the desk.</p><p>Instead he quiets, swallows his words, swallows the mercurial beat of his own heart.</p><p>If he closes his eyes long enough, he can feel the shadow of delicate fingers slip down his ribcage, the warm delighted laugh pressed hard into the curve of his neck.</p><p>*</p><p>Laurens stands stiff before him, the line of his shoulders straight and attentive in the quivering dusk light. The boy looks gaunt, eyes rimmed red and shadowed blue with every sleepless night since the news. The veins twisting around his knuckles are bright and vivid. Washington avoids his eyes, focuses on the subtle tremble he fails to hide. He is not the only one falling apart.</p><p>“We’re going to get him back.” Washington leans against his desk. These are the first words he has said aloud since Laurens flung open his door with his body hard strung and volatile. These are the first honest words he has said. <em>My boy, we’re going to get you back. </em>“You and the Marquis. I can’t…”</p><p>Lauren’s eyes soften almost imperceptibly. Washington swallows, looks away before the light brightens the gleam in his eyes.</p><p>“You’ll be reprimanded for it, Sir.” Sending soldiers blind into a pit of snakes when they are on the brink of gut-wrenching ruin. The camp is ripe with starvation and disease, and Washington could not care less.</p><p>“You are to depart as soon as General Knox takes his leave.”</p><p>Laurens nods, “Sir.” But he does not turn to leave. When Washington bears to look, Laurens’ eyes are scalding, piercing through him like a dagger. Everything unsaid lies rotting between them, an infection that festers with every passing sunset. The wound is chafes, irritated and grotesque, but now is not the time to cover it.</p><p>Washington breathes, the knot tightening inside him. “I know.”</p><p>*</p><p>He does not sleep.</p><p>The bedsheets are sandpaper to his skin, prickling his bare arms with an unbearable itch. They are an ugly auburn colour that clashes terribly with the peeling blue wallpaper, the rickety mahogany desk in the corner, the ill-painted door. The pillowcases have long since yellowed. Washington blinks, and blinks as the pastiche blurs together. However hard he squints, he can’t make out the colours. Wetness collects in the corner of his eye and suddenly it’s cold. <em>Providence, it’s so cold. </em>He looks until he can’t bear it, finding cowardly comforts behind his eyelids.</p><p>Distantly, in some exquisite paradise, he hears him. Alexander’s gentle laughter is as tantalising as it is sweet, his lips warm and soft against Washington’s neck. He’s teasing, insubordinate in his ministrations, but Washington can’t bear to rush him. His body is frail, bare as the day he was born, frail and fragile as it curls into him. Washington cocoons it with his own, easing himself over his boy, pressing him firmly into the mattress, the distant creak of springs melodic. A slip of palms against Washington’s straining arms, blunt nails trailing teasingly along the juts and muscles of his broad shoulders. Warm thighs tremble open for him, ankles twisting around his waist. Washington feels silky strands of long hair fanned out against his cheek. He cradles his boy and kisses him senseless and presses their foreheads hard together. They don’t move, the single beat of their hearts strong and soulful in the quiet.</p><p>Washington struggles to hold his boy’s gaze. Alexander’s eyes are – Alexander’s eyes are so <em>vivid</em> with sincerity, tormentingly earnest in their longing and affection.</p><p><em>My General, </em>his boy whispers.</p><p><em>My dearest, my Alexander, </em>he whispers back.</p><p>In the morning, Washington wakes up alone, cheek pressed into a pillow moist with tears.</p><p>*</p><p>They’ve been riding for hours.</p><p>The tension is pulled maddeningly taut between them. Laurens doesn’t quite feel the rough burning twist of the reins between his hands. He has long since dug red crescents into his palms.</p><p>The sun slinks lazily through the sky, puffs of cotton-white clouds lowering it gently into the horizon. Some distant part of his mind tells him it’s beautiful, picturesque. But when he blinks, the kaleidoscopic mosaic is monochromatic. An ugly blur of grey and black vignettes that burns his eyes dry. He ignores it, like he ignores the sharp thrill of pain in his back and legs from riding hard without reprieve, like he ignores the unfurling trepidation that makes bile flood the lining of his throat.</p><p>“John.” Lafayette speaks so softly, voice almost inaudible over the press of hoofs against the damp blades of grass. “We will find him.”</p><p>He nods. He thinks he nods, anyway. It seems the appropriate concession to make.</p><p>“John…”</p><p>“<em>What?</em>” The word is unleashed with such poison. Lafayette does not look upset, eyebrows drawing together and gaze heavy with melancholy. Laurens swipes hard at his eyes, berating himself. Selfish, selfish, <em>selfish. </em>“I’m sorry Laf.”</p><p>His friend shakes his head slowly, leaning to curl strong fingers around Laurens’ elbow. “I am also afraid, John.”</p><p>He swallows, his composure a fraying thread suddenly pulled to tatters. “We argued,” he tastes salt on his tongue, sharp and acidic, “before he left, we argued and I – I said <em>terrible </em>things to him Laf, I-”</p><p>He grasps blindly for the words, but they won’t come. <em>Fuck. Fuck. </em></p><p>“Then,” Lafayette clears his throat, and Laurens swallows the stone down to bury in the pit of his stomach, “you will have to apologise once we find him, no?”</p><p>He speaks with certainty Laurens knows he must not feel, for Lafayette blinks his eyes too readily and looks away too quickly, hands almost translucent in their grip. Laurens nods silently, breath little more than a truncated stutter. Birds chip elated in the distance.  </p><p>Lafayette looks ahead when he speaks, “In these times I feel blessed we’ve the General among us. It is doubtful anyone else would have sanctioned this mission.”</p><p>Laurens struggles to keep his face inexpressive, features plain. His teeth worry his lower lip with such sudden ferocity he licks copper. He yearns not to think of Washington, so he offers nothing. He does not trust his voice.</p><p>“He cares for our dear Alexander so, I see it.” Laurens jerks his head, watching carefully from the corner of his eye. But Lafayette looks undisturbed, unaffected. He does not like he harbours some unbearably terrible secret in his breast. <em>He doesn’t know. </em>“I have never seen him so…beside himself.”</p><p>Laurens pointedly does not remember the tremble blanketing Washington’s orders, the fear so palpable it makes him queasy.</p><p>His horse struts carelessly over old roots splitting open the field. He says nothing.</p><p>*</p><p>After almost two days of hard riding, they find him.</p><p>Laurens’ boots are smeared with blood, and his footprints trail spatters of red down the rickety stairs to the basement. He almost slips in his hurry, but he cannot yell. Somewhere in the skirmish he lost his voice.</p><p>An obnoxious silence greets him at the bottom, swallowing the dull thud of his steps. And then, his heart ruptures.</p><p>Hamilton is curled in the corner, shadows spilling over the delicate lines of his face. His skin is white and bloodless, purple and yellow fingerprints blossoming vividly along his throat. Laurens does not command his body to move, and yet in a moment his knees are giving hard into the stained wooden floors, the sharp stinging ache lost to him. His hands reach, reach a painfully winding eternity to Hamilton until there’s a silver dagger breaking the skin of his chin.</p><p>Hamilton’s dark eyes are wild with desperation, a drip of red slipping down the twinkling flat of the blade.</p><p>“…Laurens?”</p><p>His voice is a whisper, a faltering disbelieving stutter that pains Laurens more than the knife digging into his skin. Hamilton lets go, and it tumbles to the ground between them, hollow clank reverberating weakly.</p><p>Laurens pulls Hamilton into his arms, pulls him so close there is not a sliver of space between them. He holds fast onto the thin breakable body, little more than a mess of quivering bones and bruises. His friend shakes so intensely, Laurens fears he may just come apart.</p><p>*</p><p>He has never seen the General fragment. It starts slowly, slowly, slowly, until his tattered self-possession dissolves. Washington crushes Hamilton into his chest, buries his face in Hamilton’s limp hair, seizes their bodies together with such formidable strength the breath is aggressively yanked from his body with the force of it all.</p><p>“My boy, my boy, my boy,” he murmurs, murmurs quiet comforting nonsense into Hamilton’s cheek, the boy fading into him until his knees give. Washington holds him up, holds him steady as Hamilton stutters into broken hiccuping sobs, buries them into his General’s chest.</p><p>Washington holds him tight and doesn’t let go.</p>
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